Dublin Airport bracing for ‘extremely busy weekend’

Dublin Airport is preparing for an "extremely busy weekend" and despite increased passenger numbers is making "good progress" keeping queues through security down, the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) has said.

Some 50,000 passengers are expected to depart from Dublin Airport on Friday, with slightly lower numbers each other day of the bank holiday Easter weekend.

While passengers spent several hours queueing through Terminal 1 security at times in recent weeks, the wait time was less than 30 minutes on Friday morning, a DAA spokesman said. The airport had made “good progress” tackling lengthy security clearance times, he said.

Airport authorities continued to advise people to arrive 3½ hours ahead of their flight, to make allowances for security bottlenecks.

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The delays are due to a shortage of trained security staff, which left current staff numbers struggling to cope as international travel picked up following the Covid-19 pandemic.

The DAA, who run Dublin Airport, has just over 600 security officers at present and is aiming to bring that number closer to 900.

Last week around 250 candidates interviewed for security roles and a further 250 interviewed this week. Some 260 candidates from those groups have advanced to the next stage of the hiring process, which includes background checks and Garda vetting, the spokesman said. Across the entire operation there are around 700 roles currently vacant or recently filled.

Seven security staff from Cork Airport are working in Dublin Airport over the Easter weekend, allowing the airport to open an extra security lane.

DAA staff working elsewhere in the semi-State body, such as in human resources, accounting and other office positions, have been redeployed to work a number of short shifts over the weekend assisting security staff.

The extra staff have been put to work managing and filtering queues, preparing and returning trays for the x-ray machines, advising passengers and answering queries.

Friday and Monday are expected to be busiest days of the Easter weekend, which overall will be an “extremely busy weekend”, the DAA spokesman said.

While security queues were less than 30 minutes on Friday, the waiting times did reach up to an hour previously this week, he said.

Last week saw people arriving more than 3½ hours ahead of their flight, which contributed to backlogs as they queued to clear security alongside people with earlier flights.

“For people that have a flight after 8.30am, we continue to ask that they don’t turn up earlier than 5am,” the DAA spokesman said.

He said the number of passengers turning up excessively early appeared to have eased off in recent days. “People have been watching social media feeds and hearing ‘it’s not as bad as I thought’,” he said.